Harris campaign's embrace of social media influencers is years in the making

CHICAGO ― From the floor of the Democratic National Committee convention hall, reproductive rights advocate and social media influencer Deja Foxx urged young voters to support Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.

"People my age are making big decisions about our lives, and we deserve a president who has our back, not some power hungry millionaire reality TV personality who only cares about himself. We need Kamala Harris. She'll deliver a future where we can decide if and when to start a family," the 24-year-old from Arizona told the millions of Americans watching at home during prime time Monday.

Surrounding her in the United Center were more than a dozen other influencers the Democratic Party credentialed to cover the convention, a dramatic change in how political campaigns seek to reach voters.

But Foxx is more than an influencer. As a former Harris staffer, she played a key role in setting the foundation for the viral mania around Harris that has swept the country and could sway the outcome of this year's tightly contested election for the White House.

At a moment when fewer Americans get their news from mainstream or legacy media outlets such as newspapers and cable news, the Harris campaign has prioritized working through influencers and content creators to spread their message as they scramble in a shortened window to introduce the 59-year-old vice president to the country.

"These trusted digital messengers are able to share messages about the campaign that are unique, that are true to them, true to their life, and specific to the communities that they've curated online,” Foxx said in an interview.

Influencers who spoke to USA TODAY said they aren't being paid by the Harris campaign or the Democratic National Committee to praise their presidential nominee online. But that practice has been known to happen before, influencer strategists said.

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Quickly after President Joe Biden stepped aside, the Internet filled with thousands of TikTok edits of Harris' belly laugh, shutting down people interrupting her in debates, grilling Republicans in the Senate, and telling young girls they are the leaders of tomorrow.

It's no accident.

During Harris' short-lived 2019 campaign for president, which ended before a single caucus or primary vote was cast, Foxx worked as an influencer and surrogate strategist. It involved monitoring what was being said about Harris on social media and coordinating with influencers ahead of campaign stops.

What she found would influence who was invited to Harris events and even what merchandise was sold.

Foxx and the digital team played around with "seeding" audio and video clips of Harris on TikTok that content creators could remix with their own messages. They shot video vertically, which is easier to view on a phone, and posted clips of little moments that could be easily cobbled together.

Many of the older clips circulating online came from Harris' 2019 team, Foxx said, and she's seeing the results in her social media feeds: Harris' laughter, dancing at campaign events, striding across the tarmac toward a plane.

"This meteoric and immediate virality was possible because there was already such great raw content out there,” Foxx said. "This was just like sort of a little idea that we were playing with in our headquarters in 2019, and it's played such a major role."

'The wild west'

Politicians and social scientists have long known that the key to building support is getting a voter to feel personally invested in a campaign, said Rita Kirk, a professor of Public Affairs at Southern Methodist University, who studies political communications strategies.

“How do you get young people engaged? They're not going to do what their grandmothers did. They're not going to do a letter writing campaign, per se, but the modern equivalent to that is to use their social media contacts,” Kirk said. “It allows them a way, without leaving their home or without having to go down to the old campaign headquarters, as it used to be, to participate in the political process."

For years as vice president, Harris quietly laid the digital groundwork behind the scenes — meeting with young voters, social media influencers and several grassroots organizations, Kirk said.

"Clearly, she was expecting to make a bid to run for the White House at some future point. I think she probably wasn't anticipating doing it this year, but nevertheless, she was on that. She had been using all of this time ahead of time just to build her own capacity," Kirk said.

Campaigns still turn to celebrities to be trusted voices, but for this new generation of voters the people that they know and trust include online influencers, Kirk said. For the message to be authentic, it cannot come scripted from the campaign, which leaves the messaging largely outside their control, she said.

“It is kind of the Wild West,” Kirk said. “They're saying, if you support Harris, get out there and tell them why. The Harris campaign isn't even responsible for whether something is successful or unsuccessful. It's just people riffing with their friends.”

Campaigns have used influencers before, but not to this extent. The Biden 2020 campaign also leaned on influencers and content creators to reach voters during what was largely an online campaign because of COVID-19. His administration maintained those relationships, repeatedly giving influencers access and special briefings, including before the State of the Union and just last week when he spoke to about 100 digital creators in the White House complex's Indian Treaty Room.

After taking a selfie with the crowd, Biden said his grandchildren were not consuming news by reading newspapers or watching television anymore.

“The fact is, you are the future,” he said. “You’re the source of the news.”

'They're really the ones shaping the media narrative'

Aaron Rupar’s attention and screen is split between various cable news networks and campaign livestreams throughout the day. After eight years of clipping content, he knows a key moment when he sees it.

Former President Donald Trump questioning Harris’ race at the National Association of Black Journalists? Clipped. More than seven million views. Democrats chanting "lock him up" during former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's 2024 national convention speech? Clipped. More than one million views.

An early SnapStream adopter, Rupar has accumulated approximately 938,000 followers on X largely by posting political clips that often go viral on the platform and others, as well as end up on cable news. If users aren’t seeing the clips on his account directly, they’re seeing them on others who repost them, turn them into reaction content, or edit them into a Brat remix.

Rupar's not at the convention, but his feed is filled with clips from conservative pundits reacting to the Democratic National Convention as well as clips from the convention floor.

Democratic influencers Keith Edwards and Harry Sisson cite three accounts as the main sources of political video-content online: Rupar, a Los Angeles-based social media user known as Acyn who is connected with an anti-Trump group, and the Harris campaign account Kamala HQ, which is run by two staffers in their mid-twenties.

“They're really the ones shaping the media narrative each day through their clips,” Edwards said.

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Biden, Harris, and Kamala HQ are all streaming the convention in vertical video on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube and posting clips for creators to modify. Harris' pick for vice president Tim Walz launched his TikTok account Friday with his dog Scout and a dad joke. Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison gave a behind the scenes look at the road to the Chicago convention on his TikTok account.

All of the video and audio is there for influencers to mix, mash and create something new.

“That's a super powerful strategy where you create like a meme factory. Whatever happens in current events, you have a bunch of memes pushed out. They go to a stable of creators, and the creators kind of pick and choose. It's not like a formal system, and it's just happening,” Eric Dahan, who runs a company that manages influencers, said.

Rupar worked for Think Progress and Vox before his following allowed him to go independent. These days, his X bio still labels him a journalist, but he does not consider himself nonpartisan.

“It’d be nice if Trump lost. I think that would be good for the country,” Rupar said. “I don’t do explicit political endorsements, but you know, I think it’d be hard for people to look at a Trump thread that I do and not come away from that realizing that I’m not a fan of the guy.”

Although they sometimes receive messages encouraging them to speak about certain topics, the influencers USA TODAY spoke to said they’ve never received direct payment from the Harris campaign or the Democratic National Committee.

Dahan said he hasn't seen evidence that the Harris campaign is paying influencers, but said it has been known to happen in the past.

One left-wing blogger known as Brooklyn Dad found himself in hot water in 2021 when The Independent reported he was being paid by Really American, a Democratic political action committee during the 2020 election.

Sisson, who has been called a “DNC plant” by right-wing social media users, said the accusation is “obviously” false. He said he and other influencers pay for their own travel and accommodations when invited to the White House, campaign events, and the party’s convention.

“There’s no secret backdoor channel where people, that I know of at least, receive payment,” Sisson, who has 1.2 million TikTok followers, said. “They don’t actually, in my view, have an argument against us and what we’re advocating for. So, they have to delegitimize the person making it, and they think that ‘being paid’ or ‘being a plant’ is the best way to go about that.”

'Part of the ecosystem'

The about 200 digital creators credentialed for the Democratic National Convention received a briefing ahead of this week’s event to help prepare them for content creation.

Edwards and Sisson said organizers asked them for a wish list of those they’d like to interview for their audiences and that influencers in attendance can book studio space at the convention to create content.

The about 15,000 traditional media members who attend the convention are not credentialed by the party, but by a independent committee of journalists who divvy up space made available by the DNC among outlets. Media companies cover the costs of everything from food to furniture and Internet. There are daily press briefings and the party has a request form for surrogate interviews.

Fifty seats in the United Center were set aside for influencers. In the hallway, influencers have a section marked with a blue carpet on the first floor with little mics and phones on stands. Politicians and politicos, including Michigan Gov, Gretchen Whitmer and Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego filtered over throughout the night Monday.

To the left of the main stage is an influencer-only mini-stage where content creators can shoot and make videos during speeches. Cable news outlets have similar set ups inside the arena to speak with guests during the proceedings.

Trump and some journalists have criticized Harris for not doing a sit-down interview with traditional media outlets since announcing her presidential campaign, but Edwards and Emily Amick, who are both Democratic strategists-turned-influencers, think her campaign is just being strategic.

Edwards, who has nearly 49,000 TikTok followers, said he thinks she will eventually sit for a traditional media interview, but that between the content her team is producing and campaign stops, Harris is getting across the messages she needs to.

“She's talking to voters every day,” Edwards said. “So smart, so smart. The media is just having a temper tantrum.”

Amick, who goes by @Emilyinyourphone online and 5,763 TikTok followers, previously served as counsel to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and is one of the digital creators credentialed for the convention.

“I think there’s 200 influencers invited to the DNC, and I heard a rumor that there’s 14,000 press credentials,” Amick said of the convention. “It’s a little bit wild to pretend that it’s all influencers and no media. Influencers are just an important part of the ecosystem.”

Trump's efforts

The Trump campaign has also courted influencers this election cycle, but with less success. The Republican National Convention credentialed more than 70 digital creators and gave them space to work from. The RNC did not present its footage vertically. They livestreamed it on the conservative-leaning video service Rumble.

The former president has also sat for online interviews with internet celebrities including Logan Paul, Adin Ross, and Elon Musk — all of whom are emphatic Trump supporters.

Trump had the online momentum in 2016 when he was the fresh, unexpected face, said Melinda Jackson, a San Jose State University associate professor of political science who studies political engagement strategies.

"He was the outsider candidate in 2016, he was not a career politician. He was not a typical politician. His style, his rhetoric, was all very different. And you know, it appealed to voters who were feeling alienated from the two parties," Jackson said. “At this point, people have seen it before."

The Harris campaign has managed to reach young voters speaking their own generational language and on websites they use, like TikTok, rather than on Facebook or X, previously known as Twitter, which were the major platforms to reach voters in 2016 and 2020, Kirk said.

“The Republican side is really not doing very much in this space, particularly energizing that particular base, and letting them talk in their own language," Kirk said. "It's still top down communication. It's Trump tweeting out things and Trump saying things. It's not bottom up, it's top down.”

Dahan summed it up succinctly.

"He is the influencer, he is the personality,” Dahan said.

The shortened campaign cycle may keep the Trump campaign from being able to adapt, Jackson said, and it will help Harris preserve that sense of newness that's coming with the online campaign.

“That shorter runway is actually going to help her. She's new, she's fresh, she's getting this surge of support," Jackson said. "People keep asking, how long is the honeymoon gonna last? Well, it doesn't have to last that much longer. You know, we're talking a couple months."

Contributing: Sam Woodward, Francesca Chambers and Jessie Balmert from Chicago

Reach Sarah D. Wire on X, formerly Twitter, @sarahdwire and Rachel Barber on X, formerly Twitter, @rachelbarber_

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Kamala Harris campaign is deeply online (and on purpose)